New Delhi, Oct 29 (PTI) State-owned Oil and Natural GasCorp (ONGC) has become India's first company to hold a meetingof its Board of Directors at high sea when it top officialsassembled at an oil installation in the Arabian Sea to approvesecond quarter earnings.
ONGC's new Chairman Shashi Shanker convened the company's299th board meeting at a platform on Mumbai High fieldyesterday to approve the second quarter earnings among otherthings, officials said.
"The idea was to familiarise the independent directors,most of whom are new to the unique oil and gas exploration andproduction business, to offshore operations," an officialsaid.
ONGC produces more than 80 per cent of its oil and gasfrom offshore fields with Mumbai High, off the coast ofMaharashtra, being the biggest.
The company is betting big on quickly putting toproduction untapped discoveries as well as rejuvenating ageingfields offshore to raise crude oil production by 4 milliontonnes and almost double natural gas output by 2021-22 to meetPrime Minister Narendra Modi's target of cutting India'simport dependence by 10 per cent.
The state-owned firm plans to raise crude oil productionfrom 22.6 million tonnes in 2017-18 to 26.42 million tonnes in2021-22. Gas production is planned to be raised from current60 million standard cubic meters per day to 110 mmscmd.
The nation's biggest oil and gas producer has preparedthe 'Roadmap for Import Reduction' two years after Modi setthe target for reducing oil import dependence by 10 per cent,from 77 per cent in 2013-14.
India spent almost USD 1 trillion on crude imports fromfinancial year 2005-06 to 2015-16.
The official said the government had this month named twonew independent directors -- BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra,and Ganga Murthy. Also, the government nominee director RajivBansal, Additional Secretary and Financial Adviser in theMinistry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, came on board only inAugust this year.
Most of the seven independent directors on ONGC boardassumed charge just a few months back and the meeting inoffshore was part of an exercise to familiarise them withoperations, he said.
The board at its meeting yesterday approved appointmentof Patra as director. It also reported its highest quarterlyprofit in more than two years, aided by an increase in oilprices and output.
Net profit in July-September rose 3.1 per cent to Rs5,131 crore after output rose almost 1 per cent to 6.45million tonnes and price realisation jumped 6.9 per cent toUSD 51.22 per barrel.
The company said it has made four new oil and gasdiscoveries since July 27, taking the total to nine in thefinancial year that started April 1. PTI ANZABM.
This is unedited, unformatted feed from the Press Trust of India wire.
